


July 4th

by nutalexfanfic



Series: Polaris Studios Inc. Universe [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hollywood, CEO Lexa (The 100), Dapper Lexa, Emotional Baggage, Emotionally constipated Lexa, F/F, Fine Stud Lexa, Hollywood, No Strings Attached, One Shot, Pining Clarke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-28 21:06:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11426187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutalexfanfic/pseuds/nutalexfanfic
Summary: Early in their no strings attached relationship, Clarke realizes she's royally screwed and her strings are very much attached.





	July 4th

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you who are new to this verse: 
> 
> This is the verse in which Lexa is the CEO of a major film/tv production company and Clarke is an actress. Lexa's got a plethora of issues that make her commitment phobic and Clarke is tragically smitten. I told my tumblr followers I'd write a thing for July 4th both with and without CJ. CJ is their future daughter. So here's the one without CJ.

“You’re wearing that?” 

Clarke turns from the mirror, her fingers still lingering up by the deep neckline of her dress. “Well it’s on my body isn’t it?” 

“Just asking.”

Her hands fall to her hips and she glares. “No you’re not. Spit it out.”

Bellamy lifts off the bed and tilts to get a better look. “I mean, it’s nice.”

“But.”

"No buts. Just—“

Clarke’s phone goes off before he can finish and she turns for it, swiping it off her dresser. “It’s Raven,” she mouths after picking up.

“Is she ready?”

“Can’t figure out what to wear.”

“Tell her to come over.”

Clarke turns back to the phone. “Ray? Yeah, just come over.” There’s a pause and Bellamy tilts again, trying to hear. “No, it’s fine. Just come. Doesn’t matter if we’re late.” 

"Doesn’t she know who you are? Clarke Griffin can _always_ be late.” Bellamy mocks, grinning. He gets a pillow to the face and the middle finger.  

 

 

Not even five minutes later, there’s a knock at the door and a fussing Raven behind it. Clarke laughs. “Were you here when you called?”

“So what if I was?” Raven helps herself in and heads straight for the kitchen. “Is that what you’re wearing?”

Clarke throws up her hands. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing? Holy shit.”  

“Damn, just asking.” Raven plops down at the kitchen island and bites unceremoniously into a peach she swiped from the nearby fruit basket.

“Well obviously you guys have something to say about it.”

“I just got here.”

“Well, Bellamy—“

“Don’t listen to Bellamy, he’s gay.”

“Hey!” Bellamy shoves her shoulder so hard she nearly topples off the chair.

Clarke smirks at them and shakes her head. “ _I’m_ gay, Raven.”

“Yeah but you like girls. You know what looks hot on girls. Him, not so much. 

“I think that’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said. Besides, I know girls,” Bellamy says, rifling through Clarke’s fridge. “I slept with you, didn’t I?”

Raven thinks about it, forced to concede. “Touché, Blake. Touché.”

“Can we just focus, here?” Clarke snaps. “What’s wrong with my dress?”

The image of Raven and Bellamy next to each other, both cocking their heads in the same direction, at the same angle, would be funny if Clarke hadn’t already spent the past two hours going through her closet doing the same thing in the mirror.

“There’s nothing _wrong_ with it.”

“It’s just…aren’t you a little overdressed?”

Clarke crosses her arms and gives Bellamy a once over. “You’re wearing a suit. Tell me how I’m over-dressed.”

“Suits are versatile. You can make a suit casual, if need be. You can take off the jacket, roll up the sleeves, whatever.”

“Unless you’re Lexa,” Raven snorts, but it falls flat and Clarke immediately pales. She tries to clear her throat and redirect, but her friends are fast. Obnoxiously fast. They take one look at her, one look at each other, and are out of the kitchen and on her couch in seconds.

“You’re totally planning on seeing her there, aren’t you,” Bellamy asks, grinning up at her. Clarke flops down next to him and hides her face in her hands. “Get your own little 4th of July fireworks show?” He wiggles his eyebrows and Clarke smacks him, but can’t exactly bring herself to deny it. As much as she wants to. As much as she wants to pretend like the idea of seeing Lexa there—the idea of spending time with her surrounded by her friends, of cuddling up to her where people can see, of being _hers_ in a public setting—doesn’t make her want to turn herself inside and out.   

“Well in _that_ case.” Raven scoots closer and tugs Clarke out of the cushions. “We need to fix your hair. And get you a necklace. A nice, sparkly one that says ‘look at my tits.’” She’s up and retreating down the hall before Clarke can even get to her feet. “Hey, didn’t Dior give you a nice, big one last season?”

“I got a couple, you’ll have to be more specific,” Clarke calls back.

There’s a long pause, and then, “Yeah, I hate everything that just came out of your mouth.”

* * *

 Too many hair curlers and a large, sparkly necklace later, Clarke is ushering Raven through crowds of paparazzi and telling her to keep her head down as they squeeze their way into the venue.

It’s not crowded or stuffy, but it’s busy in that Hollywood bourgeois kind of way that Clarke hates. By the time two hours pass of her deflecting conversation so that she can keep her eye out for Lexa, she’s angrier with herself than she is with anyone else. Two hours of deflecting Raven’s sympathetic glances from across the room and Bellamy’s meager attempts at pep talks that get lost in the music. Two hours of life completely missed just so that she can stare pathetically at the door and hold her breath every time it swings open.

It’s the anger that has her pulling her phone out, but it’s the self deprecating pattern she’d gotten herself into in the last couple of months that has her sending the text she’d written and re-written all night long.

_Clarke [6:34pm]: Hey…where are you? Still coming to the party?_

She waits with her phone in her hand, afraid to put it away in case the notification gets lost in the noise that is slowly starting to give her a headache. But as the seconds turn into minutes, she wants nothing more than to throw it clear across the room. She stands there and smiles as directors and producers and people she’s never seen in her life, men in suits, and girls in short dresses, come up to her wanting to chat, wanting a picture, some even wanting an autograph, none of them able to give her what she wants.

She catches Bellamy’s eye halfway through listening to someone whom she vaguely recognizes talk about the pros and cons of method acting. He makes to move towards them, but she smiles at him—a tight, painful smile—and nods him off. This man in his poorly-fitted suit may be boring, but he’s not asking her about Lexa, and for that, she will stand there and take listening to him over facing Bellamy’s sad sympathy eyes any day.  

_Lexa [7:45pm]: Stuck at the office. Won’t be making it tonight._

_Lexa [7:47pm]: You can come by if you’d like._  

At first she thinks she imagined the vibration. After all, she’d done it several times that night already, and each time she was met with an infuriating, mocking black screen. She does a double take, a _triple_ take, at her screen before she interrupts with as graceful an exit she can manage, and smiles all the way over to Bellamy.

He reads her like an embarrassingly open book. “Lexa?”

She nods with her bottom lip pulled between her teeth, barely restraining that giddy, bubbly feeling welling inside of her that makes her somehow frustrated and elated, all at once. “I’m gonna go meet her somewhere. Can you keep an eye on Raven? I can’t regret taking her to this thing. Not with Wells breathing down my back about PR.”

“You’re just gonna go? Just like that?”

“Well, yeah.”

“She didn’t call you for two weeks. You spent all of last week moping about it and cursing her name.”

Clarke sighs, growing impatient and hating how much since he’s making. “I’m just gonna go, Bell. Okay? Please keep track of Raven. I’ll see you later, yeah?”

Bellamy stares at her for a long moment before caving. He nods and looks over her shoulder, shoulder, finding Raven who looks like she’s been doing celebrity parties all her life. “I got her. No drunken selfies with the pap.”

“God,” Clarke chuckles, “please no.”

“Just. Be careful, okay? And let me know if you need a ride home…after.”

Clarke pats him on the chest and winks. “Don’t wait up. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

* * *

Twenty floors up gives her a lot of time to think. It gives her a lot of time to worry herself into a fidgeting, self-conscious mess that stares hard into the doors of the elevator, searching for a reflection to adjust herself in.

She fluffs her hair and pulls on the neckline of her dress, tugging it lower to reveal more cleavage. She touches up her lipstick and wipes at the slight smudges under her eyes. All for a woman who could seemingly care less about what Clarke looks like. All for a woman who has made one and only one thing clear between the two of them since they’d met—this was just sex. Emotionless, no strings attached, no questions asked, sex. And for that, Clarke only had to show up.

She unclasps and reclasps her necklace several times until it hangs just the way she wants it to. She’s got about five different ways to greet Lexa queued up in her mind, and is in the process of searching her clutch for her perfume, when the doors slide open much to soon.

Taking a deep breath, she steps out of the elevator and walks the familiar path to reception, flinching slightly against the automatic lights that seem to peer down at her skeptically as they follow her path.  She’s not expecting to see anyone, but as she draws up to the reception desk, she can see Aden’s skinny frame hunched on the floor of his office, eating take-out with a boy she doesn’t recognize.

Hating to interrupt, and hating even more to create sound in a situation that feels like it should be quiet—like she’s breaking rules and sneaking in—she hits the bell on the desk tentatively and waits.

Aden’s head pops out from his doorway a second later and she holds her breath. “Oh hey,” he says, his surprise instantly turning into a smile. “How are you?”

Clarke tries to play off of his casual smile and easy stance. He leans against the doorway like he’s never been more at home, and for a second, she’s reminded of her little brother with his dusty, blonde hair and dimples for days. “I’m good,” she sighs, trying to release the nerves. “How are you?”

“Can’t complain.” He grins and it’s infectious. “Here for Lexa?”

She nods and tries to ignore the way he looks like he knows something that he shouldn’t. He presses the button releasing the door and stands aside for her to pass, all the while giving her that look that makes her skin crawl.

“She’s in her office.  I think she’s expecting you, so you can just head on back.”

* * *

There’s something about the floor-to-ceiling, frosted glass doors of Lexa’s office that always feel intimidating no matter how often she visits. A dichotomy in and of themselves—with the glass that should be transparent, but isn’t—standing before them makes her pulse race in an attempt to keep up with her thoughts.

Her fist rises to the door and hangs there as she weighs her next possible steps. She can walk through these doors with no expectations beyond the sex. She can let Lexa press her against the wall and have her way. She can let Lexa lead, let her take control and let her throw her away when she’s done. Or she can demand better. She can demand more. She can grab Lexa by nape of her neck and kiss her like she wants to. She can nuzzle at her ungodly jaw and she can run her hands up her ribs, soft and gentle and exploring. She can suck the fear out of her and hold it in her hands for Lexa to face.  

Her palm presses against the door as her head falls, the air coming out of her labored and uneven. “ _Shit._ ” She inhales through her nose and closes her eyes, wondering if any of this is worth it when she knows she’s just going to crash and burn.

But the way Lexa holds her. The way she touches her. Those ridiculous eyes when they finally look up at her…

“Fuck it.” She knocks and takes a step back. Lexa’s “come in” is faint, but it’s enough to have her choking over her own heart beat. She takes a moment to compose herself, then pushes through the door, not exactly sure what she’s expecting to find.

What she knows she’s not expecting, is to see Lexa standing at the window in dark wash jeans and an argyle sweater. As much as she likes the suits, as much as she likes the ridiculously formal attire at all times of the day on all kinds of occasions, this somehow catches her by surprise, and sweeps the breath right out of her. Lexa turns to look at her behind a pair of unfamiliar glasses, and what Clarke is most definitely not expecting, is to trip head over heals at the sight of her.

“Hey,” she breathes. It comes out of her like a barely restrained gasp as Lexa gazes at her, taking in every perfectly placed point of focus—the necklace, the cleavage, the hint of thigh beneath the dress—just as Clarke had planned and hoped for. And yet, it’s when Lexa’s gaze finds her eyes that she feels most vindicated.

“Hey.” Lexa steps away from the window and crosses to the door, holding it open for Clarke as she walks in.  “Wasn’t sure if you were coming.”

“You didn’t get my text?” She watches Lexa’s eyes drift to her desk where she spots Lexa’s phone. When she looks back at her, the CEO looks like she wants to say something—something heavy and secret and important. Instead she drags her hand through her hair and shakes her head.

“I’ve been busy.”

It’s not the entire truth, that much Clarke can see, but she doesn’t press as Lexa helps her out of her jacket. There’s something different about her tonight. She’s quiet and reserved, not oozing in her normal confidence and swagger.  She’s yet to touch Clarke, yet to get that ignited look in her eyes that makes Clarke feel the need to grab onto something and hold on tight.

“Would you like a drink?”

Clarke takes a good look at her. There’s not a hair out of place. The knot of her tie peaking out from under her neckline is impeccable—she’s as perfectly manicured as always, and yet there’s something frazzled and uneasy about her. “Whatever you’re having is fine,” she says, still studying the CEO’s tall frame.

Lexa takes a bottle of scotch from the bar cart in the corner and holds it up to her in question.

“Sure,” Clarke smiles and comes up behind her. She runs her hands up Lexa’s back, but Lexa flinches under her palms, and it hurts somewhere deep in her chest. Not the rejection, but the struggle that Lexa is so clearly and quietly fighting against. “Hey,” she soothes. She tries again, and this time, Lexa settles ever so slightly. She peeks around her shoulder and looks up at her. “You okay?”

Lexa nods and turns, breaking the contact. She hands Clarke a tumbler and leans against the window, watching her as she takes the rim to her lips and takes a sip.

“Wow,” Clarke lets out a low whistle, “that’s really good.” She’s rewarded with the smallest of grins that shoots straight through her to her toes. As difficult as Lexa is—as frustrating and brutal and destructively addictive as all of this is—she’d do it a million times over for a fraction of that smile.   

“How was the party?”

Clarke studies her over the rim and licks her lips. “It was good. I brought my friend along. She’s not in the industry, so it was quite the scene for her.” Lexa grins again and Clarke feels it tangle with the alcohol slowly coating her system, heating the skin on her chest and face.

“Did she enjoy herself?" 

“She seemed to be having fun when I left.”

“I didn’t mean to pull you away from your friends.”

“Why did you?”

The question settles between them, unanswered and elusive. Lexa’s eyes flash like steel, provoked in the way that Clarke had hoped for. She wants to hear Lexa say it. Wants to hear her say that she’d wanted her there, and she wants to hear her struggle against it. It’d be something familiar to grasp onto—something that tells her that she’s not alone in all of this. That there is something still there between them, battling against the current, fighting to stay alive. Something that makes Lexa hard and skittish all at once. Something that makes Clarke want her even more.

“Why’d you ask me to come?” She repeats, taking a measured sip of her scotch, maintaining her lock on Lexa’s eyes as the liquid stings its way down her throat.

“I didn’t.”

“Maybe not technically. But you offered. You had to know I’d come.” She takes a step closer. “Is that what you wanted?”

Lexa crosses her arms, her glass resting against the curve of her bicep. “Why do you care so much?”

“Because I wanna know if this is what you want. Do you want me here? Do you want _me_?" 

The question ticks in the strong muscle of Lexa’s jaw, and she shifts, straightening up and raising her chin, ever so slightly. She’s beautiful when she’s defensive, and it makes Clarke’s eyes sparkle. She smiles to herself and steps in again until they’re toe to toe. She reaches behind her and sets her glass down, moving slowly like a trainer in a cage with a tiger, careful and precise and desperate to hide the nerves and the fear. She runs her palms up Lexa’s chest and along the sides of her throat, interlacing her fingers at the nape of her neck.

  
“Are you gonna come down here or am I going to have to climb?”

A smirk plays at the corner of Lexa lips before she quickly hides it away. But not quick enough for Clarke to miss. Clarke raises to her tip-toes and kisses at where it’d just been, light and hesitant. A test that she hopes to god neither of them will fail.

For a millisecond that feels like an eternity, Lexa stands there stiff against her, unresponsive and weary. “Kiss me,” Clarke whispers, going in again. Lexa doesn’t move the whole way in, but when their lips touch and Clarke can’t hold back the sigh in the back of her throat, Lexa’s hand finally comes up to rest lightly on the curve of her hip. 

Clarke wants to cheer. She wants to burst into song and giggle and applaud because every tiny step feels like a victory when it comes to Lexa. Every smile. Every minute show of affection. Every touch. Every commitment, physical or otherwise, makes her want to shout from the rooftops and plaster her heart on her sleeve like an invincible idiot.

Instead, she steps closer and presses their hips together, leaning into Lexa and tugging her closer by the nape of her neck. She’s impatient and frustrated because she can’t get close enough, and Lexa is still stiff and hesitant under her palms in a way that Clarke’s not used to. She’s not used to having to lead and coax and persuade. She’s used to being taken and commanded—easy and open and eager. But this— the almost desperate attempts to get Lexa to reciprocate her touch— it’s much too similar to the morning afters and the everythings in between. The sex is supposed to be the easy part.

“Hey.” She takes Lexa’s face in her hands and gives her a gentle squeeze. “What’s going on?” She searches Lexa’s expression, eyes flicking over every beautiful feature of her face. “Hm?”

“Nothing,” Lexa mutters.

Clarke goes to prompt her again, but a firework goes off somewhere in the distance and Lexa jumps under her hands, breath hitching audibly as her pupils blow wide and her throat struggles to swallow the air caught in it.

“Lex?”

Another goes off and Lexa’s hand clenches painfully hard around her hip. Her eyes snap shut and her jaw contracts, and she trembles, ever so slightly. She doesn’t push Clarke away, but Clarke somehow knows not to dare touch her. Like gunshots, three more go off in succession and Lexa tenses up so tight it’s a wonder she doesn’t snap in half.

“Lexa—“ 

“I don’t like loud noises,” the CEO mutters so quickly and quietly that Clarke almost misses it.  Almost. 

“I see that,” Clarke says quietly without any malice. “Can I touch you?”

Lexa’s eyes flutter open and settle on Clarke’s face. “What?”

She raises her hands slightly. “Can I touch you?”

“I…” Lexa studies her open palms for a moment before nodding. “Okay.”   

Clarke smiles at her and runs her hand gently up the side of Lexa’s neck and onto her cheek, brushing her thumb against the pale skin under her eyes. Her touch is tender but steady when another eruption rattles the pane of the window. Clarke catches Lexa’s terrified eyes and holds her gaze, trying to wordlessly reassure her.

For a moment, she thinks it’s working. But then Lexa’s eyes drop and she stiffens despite the absence of any sound. “You should go,” she murmurs without looking up. It’s sad and embarrassed and Clarke aches for her.

“I have an idea.”

“Clarke—“

“Come on.” She tilts her head towards the couch and takes Lexa’s hand in hers, leading her away from the window.

“It’s fine, Clarke. I don’t need—“

“Yes you do. Be quiet and come here.” She tugs a little on Lexa’s hand. “I’m not leaving, so you might as well just listen to me.”

“What are you doing?”

“Sit down. I’ll be right back.”

Before Lexa can respond, Clarke crosses the office and disappears down the hall. When she returns, she’s got a headphone splitter and two pairs of earbuds held triumphantly in her hands. “I saw Aden and his friend using these when I walked in.”

“His boyfriend,” Lexa corrects absentmindedly.

“Ah.” Clarke smiles and stops in front of the couch. “Sit back.”

“Why?”

“Do you always ask this many questions?”

“Are you always this—“ but a firework goes off and the words are lost in Lexa’s throat as her eyes flinch shut and her chest inflates with a breath she can hardly contain.

“Can I sit in your lap?” Clarke asks her quietly, waiting patiently until Lexa is ready to open her eyes again. When she does, they’re glassy and dark—similar to what Clarke is used too, but also entirely different.

Lexa looks at her for a moment, then nods, her hands coming instinctively to Clarke’s hips as Clarke climbs on and straddles her. “Put these in.” Clarke hands her one pair of earbuds and untangles the other pair for herself, plugging both into the splitter and then into her phone. “Music choice?”

“Music?”

“Yeah. What do you like?”

“I…” Lexa pauses. She shakes her head and stares up at Clarke looking entirely out of her element. 

“How about I choose?” She settles on a mellow playlist and turns up the volume until it’s mostly all she can hear, the eruptions of the fireworks reduced to dull booms resonating somewhere off in the distance. “Okay?”

Lexa nods, her eyes transfixed on Clarke in way that emboldens the actress. She places her hands on Lexa’s shoulders and kneads the tense muscles there until they start to soften under her touch, all the while burning under Lexa’s persistent gaze. As the music drifts between them, and Lexa’s breathing starts to even out, she moves to the knot of Lexa’s tie, working it lose. She’s transfixed by her own movements. Mesmerized by the tenderness she’s being allowed.

She moves carefully and gently, afraid to spook or disrupt the quiet thing beneath her. Any moment now she expects it all to implode on her. She expects Lexa to grab her wrists and hold her back, sit up and take charge, maybe stand up with her and press her into the wall, growling “no kissing,” at her like she’s so fond to do.

But as long as Lexa sits there, calm and subdued, she lets herself have the moment. Her hands come to the hair dangling around Lexa’s glasses, sweeping it back and smoothing it over the crown of her head. She likes the rough sex, that she can’t deny. But this—the intimacy and the quiet tenderness of this moment—is more than she could have ever thought she wanted. The admission lodges painfully in her throat and wells in her eyes.

Lexa surprises them both when she presses up and catches Clarke quickly on the lips. It’s chaste and fleeting, but Clarke feels it everywhere. It tugs at her breath and ignites her skin and she feels like she’s falling in that dangerously thrilling rollercoaster kind of way. Her fingers jump to catch in Lexa’s hair, wanting to keep her close, wanting desperately for her to do that again, but Lexa settles back into the couch, avoiding her eyes. 

“You’re so—“ Clarke starts to grumble. With a shake of her head she leans in and nudges Lexa’s chin up with her nose, pausing just long enough to let Lexa move away. When she doesn’t, Clarke takes the plunge and kisses her, soft but deep, sucking on her lower lip, refusing to disconnect.

“Clarke—“

“Shut up—“

“No kissing.”

“You kissed me first.”

Lexa’s sigh is warm against her face and it eggs her on. She combs her fingers through Lexa’s hair, loving how soft and silky it is, loving how it stirs up the breezy smell of her shampoo. She leans back in and kisses her until she feels that shift she’d been looking for. Lexa’s hips tilt into hers and the hands on her back grip into her skin and tug. Lexa nips at her bottom lip making Clarke smile and press in until they’re flush.

The sky deepens around them, occasionally flickering with the now-subtle cracks and whizzes of fireworks. With the music in their ears, their touch detached from the room tone and the space outside their earbuds, it’s as if time has suspended for a moment, just for them. Clarke can neither keep up nor get enough as Lexa kisses her as she never has before. Open and honest and attentive. She moves with Clarke, holds her close, lets Clarke’s hands wander and pull and caress. 

Clarke rocks into Lexa, chest racing, breath thick and flustered across Lexa’s lips. She wraps her arm behind Lexa’s neck and tugs her closer despite the fact that they’re as close as they can get. And yet, it doesn’t stop her. She’s determined and grabby, desperate to find purchase, desperate to take advantage of Lexa’s rare acquiescence. It’s then that she realizes just how panicked she is. Just how panicked she always is with Lexa, terrified of when it’s over, hating herself when it’s over, desperate to make it last.

“Don’t stop,” she finds herself whispering. “Please don’t stop.” She whispers it so quietly she thinks there’s no way Lexa can hear it over the music. But Lexa kisses her and runs her hand up the back of Clarke’s neck, cradling her head. It’s gentle and reassuring in that quiet, Lexa kind of way. It only makes it worse. “Fuck,” Clarke gasps, gripping into Lexa, wriggling herself closer. Her eyes sting and her vision blurs as Lexa kisses her again, oblivious to Clarke’s slow disintegration.

Lexa pulls the earbuds out of both of their ears and stares at her, those steel, green eyes flicking over every inch of her flushed face. “Do you wanna go?”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Clarke breathes, her forehead coming to rest on Lexa’s.

“Why not?”

Clarke swallows. How does one say, _I like you too much, and I want more,_ to someone who wants absolutely nothing to do with any kind of emotion or attachment?  “I’m tired,” she says, sitting back and detangling herself.

“You didn’t seem tired a second ago.”

“It just hit me.”

No one scrutinizes quite like Lexa does. There’s something in the way she studies every inch of Clarke that makes her feel paper thin—likes she’s one step away from either blowing away or catching fire, ripped into shreds, or crafted into something fragile and beautiful. Whether it’s inherent to Lexa’s personality or from her years in positions of power, there’s an omnipotent and unyielding quality to her gaze that Clarke feels tremble along her nerves and tug at her bones.

She licks her dry lips and slides further out of Lexa’s lap, tugging on the end of her dress as it rides up. She doesn’t miss the way Lexa’s gaze dips and feasts on the fleeting display of smooth, pale skin. “I’m gonna go,” she says, her voice hoarse and unsure like it knows better. 

With the confidence she’d been missing since the minute Clarke had walked in, Lexa stands and crowds into Clarke’s space, her hand possessively on her hip. “Don’t go. Come home with me.”

“Home? As in. _Your_ home?” Clarke challenges her with perhaps a little more malice in her tone than she’d intended. But it doesn’t matter, Lexa doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t see anything wrong with this. With her stupid rules and her ridiculous requests.

“Well, no. I meant—“

“My house. You meant my house,  right? So that when you’re done, you can, you know leave without it being awkward. Right? That’s what you meant?”

“Clarke—“

“Don’t. Just—“ She sighs and closes her eyes, hating herself for what’s to come and still completely unable to stop it, _refusing_ to stop it. She opens her eyes and nods, once, resolutely, pathetically. She nods because she's knows there's no point in arguing with her. She takes Lexa’s hand and sighs. “Come on. Let’s go.”

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
